Ganesh Raghunathan

Research Affiliate, Western Ghats

From concerts to conservation, it has been a journey of transition for me. My interests lie in the field of elephant behaviour and this has helped me to be instrumental in human elephant conflict management in the Anamalais. Over the past few years, I have witnessed and documented some of the rare and intimate moments of elephant life. Besides spamming the residents of Valparai, I am also interested in photography and filming the natural world around me.

When leopards are found in human-dominated landscapes, conflicts may
arise due to attacks on people or livestock loss or when people
retaliate following real and perceived threats. In the plantation
landscape of the Valparai plateau, we studied incidents of injury and
loss of life of people and livestock over time (15 – 25 y) and carried
out questionnaire surveys in 29 plantation colonies and eight tribal
villages to study correlates of livestock depredation, people's
perception of leopards, and preferred management options for human –
leopard interactions. Leopards were implicated in an average of 1.3 (±
0.4 SE) incidents/year (1990 – 2014) involving humans and 3.6 (± 0.8 SE)
incidents/year (1999 – 2014) involving livestock, with no statistically
significant increasing trend over time. Most incidents of injury or
loss of life involved young children or unattended livestock, and
occurred between afternoon and night. At the colony level, livestock
depredation was positively related to the number of livestock, but
decreased with the distance from protected area and number of residents.
Half the respondents reported seeing a leopard in a neutral situation,
under conditions that resulted in no harm. All tribal and 52% of estate
respondents had neutral perceptions of leopards and most (81.9%, n = 161
respondents) indicated changing their own behaviour as a preferred
option to manage negative interactions with leopards, rather than
capture or removal of leopards. Perception was unrelated to livestock
depredation, but tended to be more negative when human attacks had
occurred in a colony. A combination of measures including safety
precautions for adults and children at night, better livestock herding
and cattle-sheds, and building on people's neutral perception and
tolerance can mitigate negative interactions and support continued human
– leopard coexistence.